Perkins: Polls showing high gay marriage support misleading

3/24/13 11:53 AM EDT

Don't believe the polls on gay marriage, the president of the Family Research Council said Sunday.

Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," Tony Perkins argued that recent polls showing unprecedented support for same-sex marriage don't matter as much as the results when voters have gone to the ballot box on the issue.

"The polls that really matter are the polls that are taken when the people actually vote on this. When people have voted as late as 10 months ago, 30 states have put the natural definition of marriage into their state constitution on average by a vote of 67 percent," Perkins said. "Talk about polls? You really get what you ask for. There's later polls out by Reuters this week, the Pew Research that show not only is it evenly split in this nation, but when you look at Republicans, 63 percent of Republicans say it would be harmful to the family to redefine marriage."

Perkins pushed back against the assertion that Americans are moving toward an embrace of gay marriage.

"We're far from being at a point where America has embraced same-sex marriage," he said.

With the Supreme Court set to hear a pair of cases on same-sex marriage this week, Perkins argued that the high court shouldn't "interject itself," pointing to the 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion.

"I wish this was just about the marriage altar. It's more, it's about altering all of society. With marriage goes what our children are taught, parents losing the right to define morals for their children. It's about religious freedom, unfortunately the two are intertwined in our culture," he said. "The court should not interject itself. We've got the history of Roe v. Wade to know what happens when the court interjects itself.

"The pro-life movement would probably not be as strong and vibrant as it is today had the court not stepped in and forced abortion on the nation 40 years ago," Perkins said. "I think it would be a big mistake for the court to interject itself."